Class of 2021

Hush hush

Somebody calling my name

Hush hush

Somebody calling my name

Alleluia

Hush hush

Somebody calling my name

Whoa my Lord

Whoa my Lord

What shall I do.

 

Well, greetings ladies and gentlemen, madam president, trustees, distinguished emeriti, the faculty, the regular faculty, and the various families gathered here today. It is with great pleasure and an honor to be with you.

 

When I heard that the students had requested that I come back again, I was thrilled. These ceremonies are very important to me, and I know to you. When I was young, I went to other people’s graduations as well as mine because the sanctity, the holiness, the specialness of the occasion touched me very, very, very deeply. I was the first one in my family to go to school, to get a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin, major in music, and then I received another scholarship that allowed me to go to Carnegie Mellon University and there I majored in music and got my MFA. During that time, I met Fred Rogers. He had a big influence on my life, and nothing would have been the same without him.

 

I want you to know that I most want to leave you today with a message of hope and inspiration. Someone else said do what you love, the money will come; all is well and good if there’s a stable way to pay the rent and your phone bill and your electric bill and travel and your clothes, the list goes on and on. But I do say to you, doing what you love can be a big challenge. You must experiment, you should experiment, everyone should try different things.

 

For example, I love singing and I love writing. How do I do both of them together? Singing is for the extrovert and the one who appears here on stage and writing requires a portion of introvertism. I’ve learned to love being alone in order to create. If you’re lucky, you can find or write in a bookstore or in a library or sitting out on a grassy knoll. That’s not good for me, it’s not my choice.

 

I prefer sitting in my office at home with my trusty desktop and hopefully with a rerun of the New York Yankees baseball and especially if they’re winning. I also have a little doggie named Princess and she keeps me company. I settle into my comfy chair, turn off the phone, turn off the television, except for the Yankees, turn up the lights, and I let my imagination fly away, take off. I begin my journey thinking about my family, my great grandmother in Birmingham. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, my father who’s long been dead, but I went back to visit my sisters and brothers there and I think about what that means. My great grandmother Laura May, it’s the grit of my life the substance of my life. I’m a southern guy and my problem with the south, my problem with parts of Ohio where we moved to, is that I’m an openly gay man. I’m an openly gay man with my family and with my friends and peers at Middlebury College, but I want you to know that it has not been easy.

 

I love to travel. I’ve sung all over the world and I frequently go back to visit, and I have wonderful conversations with folks that I’ve met along the way. There’s no limit to where I can go and what I can do and say with these dear, dear old friends because of wi-fi and Zoom and uh, Skype. I’m actually able to stay in touch with everybody, and that especially applies to my cosmic children.

 

Now I’ve had people who have been drawn to me over the years not just from Middlebury College, but from Oberlin to Youngstown to Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon. They’re drawn to me by their journey, their experience, what they need that I seem to fulfill. I invite them to come and spend a while with me. What do I give them, I ask myself sometimes, what is it? It’s a mystery, but it’s unconditional love. I encourage them to be who they are. I encourage them to explore who it is, what it is, they want for the future.

 

You know, I always tell my students “you are going to be the future.” And you are also going to be our future when you will be in charge, and when you are in charge, you’ll have to make decisions and sometimes those decisions will be painful and you will feel as though you’re doing something wrong or you need permission. But many times, that’s the universe nudging you to go ahead, go in that direction because that’s going to be your special contribution.

Now, since I was an openly gay man, I had many conversations with Mr. Rogers about my sexuality because when I was troubled about it, and I was asking for advice, he listened to me. He listened to me without judgment. But he did say to me, “Francoise, if you’re going to be openly gay, you cannot be on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood anymore,” and it was quiet. I said, “And why?” He said because our sponsors would not tolerate having an openly gay man on a children’s television program where other people would see and talk and they would not say nice things. He said they would say terrible things about me that were not true, but that’s their idea of what a gay person is like. So, I had a difficult choice to make, the kind that you may have someday. It makes all the difference, you don’t know as I didn’t know if your choice may choose to be very, very important 25, 30, 45, 50 years later.

 

Can you imagine that I was not prepared to have people ask me what was that scene about when you put your feet in the water with Fred Rogers? Well, I remember the distress, the enormous confusion and fighting and burning, that was going on in America after Dr. King’s assassination. Many of us were simply devastated, and I saw where some people in the south and the Midwest, Memphis, Nashville, Columbus, Cincinnati were going around and dumping chemicals and powders into swimming pools so that these young black children could not swim. And it lit my fire, so to speak; I was furious. So, I talked to Fred, and I told him we have got to do something. When I said we have got to do something, that’s that terribly, terribly difficult place inside of me again. I wanted to go get some guns and I wanted to go and take some of these guys out I was so angry. But Fred said, “no, let me think about it Francoise.” And so I said, “All right Fred,” with the idea in mind that he was going to come back to me with a super plan to get some friends and guns together and go to a couple of swimming pools and get rid of these managers and guys who were so rude and hateful. And instead he said, “Here’s the scene for you, come to the studio.” And when I came to the studio he was sitting outside with his feet in a children’s pool of water, small, and he said, “Officer Clemmons, come on over and sit down with me, rest yourself.” I said, “Well, I’m working Fred; I’m busy, but well okay I’ll take a minute or two.” And I walked over and I took my boots off, I took my socks off, and I put my feet in that cold water. Well, we sat there, and we talked as two friends, in fact I remember…

 

There are many ways to say I love you

There are many ways to say I care about you

Many ways

Many ways, many ways to say I love you

You’ll find many ways to say I love you

You’ll find many ways to say I care about you

Many ways

Many ways, many ways to say I love you.

 

Now, when I sang that song to Fred, I meant it and I know that he meant it because he had written it just for me. When I was getting out of the pool of water, I said I didn’t have a towel and he said you can use my towel no, no big deal. No big deal to him, but it was a big deal to me. So, there I was; I let him help me with his towel to dry my feet, and frankly I was glad because he did a good job on both, and so that when I put my socks on and he was still helping me.

 

Like I said, something you do in 1969, 70, 75 resonates 50, 60 years later and people say, “Dr. Clemmons, do you realize what you were doing or what you were saying years ago when you sat there in the neighborhood with Fred, and you put your feet in the same water?” I can’t give you the whole answer to what it all meant, because there are many different liturgical interpretations of Jesus and his disciples; and he washed their feet in preparation for the new, uh, the new holiday and he was a practicing Jew and he kept the sabbath, and so his disciples were all there likewise. And when he dried their feet, he said to Peter, who am I; what am I; why, why are we here? And Peter said, you are the son of the living god; and Jesus says, my father which is in heaven has revealed this to you, not some other man. And he said, Peter, on this rock I will build my church and the very gates of hell shall not prevail against him.

 

Well, they have Saint Peter’s in Rome and Saint Peter has been buried there and it’s a big ceremony to do, but here’s a black man in America in a studio with an eminent white man and he is washing and drying my feet. I’m an openly gay black man, I come from the wrong side of the tracks, I was poor, I went through college and graduate school on a scholarship, not like Mr. Rogers.

 

I had parents who fought and parents who turned my world upside down, but I landed on my feet, and I decided to try again, try, and try again and that’s what I urge you to do today.

Don’t give up, there’s joy all around you. One thing I also want to be sure to tell you, I needed help. If you need help, my personal belief is that the universe hears you and there are people around you who will help you, who will say yes, what is it you want to be, what skill do you have, what skill do you want to learn? I will help you, but you have to be humble enough to ask and humble enough to accept and it’s not always going to be your parents. Help comes from everywhere, and I reached out time and time and time again and people looked and said, “well Francoise, if you want to do that I think we can help you. Yeah, let’s see what is it that we have to do.”

 

Well, I eventually wound up at Middlebury College and I started singing all over the state and that’s where my cosmic children came in, they came and stayed with me at my house, sometimes for a few months, a few weeks, other times for years. I felt that my job, my role in this world. I did not embark on this intentionally, but the kind of unconditional love that Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers gave to me, I give to you. I say it so that you can hear it: I love you. I give you my heart, I am here. If there’s something that you need, ask for it; if I can’t do anything else, I can help you pray for it. I believe one of the greatest gifts I have is to pray and to meditate, and you should do the same.

 

Swing low sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home

Swing low sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home

Now I looked over Jordon and what did I see

Coming for to carry me home yeah

A big band of angels were coming after me

Coming for to carry me home

Whoa swing low lord sweet chariot

Coming for to carry me home

Swing low coming for to carry me home

 

Congratulations to our new young graduates, and I wish you all the luck and success and curiosity in the whole world. God bless you.